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Till & Schneider - Stern

Rammstein has had worldwide success by breaking taboos. Now, the Band says, the time of provocation is past.

Florian Gless/Hannes Roß
April 2001

Forward:
They sing of child abuse, of incest, of necrophilia. They presented a video of clips from Leni Reifenstahl’s film study of physicality documentary Olympia. And when singer Till Lindemann rolls the R, it roars as it once did from a utility radio set. The Wall Street Journal determined: "Woah, that's German!" Rammstein, German Band. A right-wing Band? Since their establishment at the beginning of 1994 the six musicians from Schwerin and East Berlin have been under suspicion of making right-wing rock.

As a matter of fact, the texts with their representation of sex and force are often close to the censorship line - however there is no fascism between the lines. Now Rammstein, with approximately three million Album sales, internationally the most successful German-speaking Band since Kraftwerk at the end of the 70's, has a new CD on the market: "Mutter", and even before it’s release on 2 April the advance orders have already placed it in the Top 3 of the German Charts. 'Stern' spoke with singer Till Lindemann and drummer Christoph Schneider about their youth in the DDR, Rammstein as therapy - and provocation as a measure of style.

On your new album the track "Links 234" was accompanied by the sound of marching boots. That sounds like the ‘Wochenschau’ from 60 years earlier.

Schneider: The piece was the first attempt by Rammstein to set itself apart, artistically, from the perpetual reproach that we are a right-wing Band. The fact that it’s already being discussed again is very nearly amusing.

But you could have omitted the marching sound. Wouldn’t the message that your heart strikes obviously "left", then have been much clearer?
Till: That is the intention. One leaves in some marching and responds after that.
Schneider: We hate to express ourselves unambiguously. With Rammstein there always remains room for free interpretation.

That provides for misunderstanding.

Till: It was like that from the outset. We all grew up in the DDR, coming from the punk scene. If we wanted to appear there, we had to present our repertoire before the classification commission in a specified way. What you said, what you sang and also partly what you played you had to consider completely and exactly. Every criticism of the system was forbidden. So you had to try do it in a round about way. For this reason probably, we readily still give ambiguous replies.
Schneider: If one looks at the lyrics of DDR-Bands, one can see how they describe a topic by this lyric method. We are closely connected to the Past. We cannot separate ourselves from it. That was our youth. If we came from the west, there would be no Rammstein. We would not be so violent anyhow.

Why not?

Till: What do you want to do, in order to interact, in order to play before more than ten people? You begin to make use of provocation and be extreme. As East German, we were surely more courageous. It began with the fact that we sang this kind of hard music in German. And furthermore we also gave vent somewhat to everything, which had dammed up in our DDR youth, there we calmed down. Finally we were allowed to say everything, do everything. In principle it was very simple: Look into your stomach, look into your soul, and capture it to make music.

From your apparently very dark soul came the lines: "My black blood and your white flesh/I become ever more excited by your screams". Was that more than provocation on a record?

Schneider: Provocation is exhausted sometimes. There are just a few topics, which are suited to it. We used those.
Till: What use is it, if you write the same paedophile song for the third time?
Schneider: At that time, we drove off with the tank, without regard to the left or the right or of losses, and we broke through. We were heard. Now we fix the left over fragments. And so the understanding of what we actually are catches on - a German Metal Band. With the new album we often asked ourselves: Is that really still Rammstein? Are we now only making nice music? To that extent, I no longer consider the new record to be provocative. Surely its already Mainstream. But good Mainstream.

However, Rammstein provocation does not only mean the ambiguous lyrics, but also the aesthetics of the Band and their Show. Anti-aircraft spotlights, which radiate into the sky, recall images of the Nazi Party Congress; Lindemann’s guttural singing with the rolled R reminiscent of Nazi megalomania. Must he do it?

Till: The R just comes from me. When I sing so deeply and expressively, my vocal chords vibrate, and it rolls out. As for the rest: Peter Maffays vocal chords react similarly, the R is rolled. And the light display, doesn’t it look good though? The rest does not concern me at all. Is that all one is allowed to be associated with, those twelve lousy years? Then just tear down the Olympic Stadium and all the other Nazi buildings in Berlin! Those twelve years, an idiot named Hitler and one returns to it again and again. It only concerns art. It has nothing to do with anything else.
Schneider: This discussion shows, nevertheless, that there is obviously no coming to terms with the past in society. You can say however: Okay, there is the light show, it’s great and there is the Nazi Party Congress, it’s shit. One can separate it though, everyone for themselves. In this way, one finds the route to one’s own history. I may not always think, oh It is all so demanding; I may not speak against it and think any other way... No, a difference of opinion! Rammstein’s task is also the search for its own music, a German music. There we encounter our history naturally and get all these accusations. But I see that as rather positive: We try to find our own identity; many musicians or artists in Germany gave up on that long ago.

To that end it also appears that you do not show any emotion on stage and Lindemann strikes himself with the microphone on the head until bloody?

Till: On stage we are conscious that we are actors, that we have a Show. You do not notice the pain when you strike yourself each evening on the same place on the head. Schneider has already had a neon tube broken on the shoulder.
Paul, our guitarist, burned me on the ear in Australia.
Schneider: It is probably that: Rammstein is like a self-help group for us. Like therapy.

When was the first time you experience anything about the National Socialist times?

Till: To a large extent it was with Auschwitz. It was everyday life for us: Group journeys with the school to the camps, see Buchenwald, put flowers down at the memorials, the KZ march would go through Mecklenburg, from Güstrow along the highway. Such memorials stand at every corner.
Schneider: In the DDR citizenship and historical instruction were strongly anti-fascist. Everything except communism was bad: Fascism, West Germany, Capitalism. They were all taboo. For this reason, I think we now also have this pronounced right-wing extremism in the east: It’s all shit to me, and I want to draw attention to it. So I make use of the worst thing that I know of - and become a neo-Nazi.

Why don't you take part in concerts like "Rock against right wing power"?

Schneider: We do not want to get involved with such matters. That would be ridiculous. Then it would be said that we used it only in order to become even more popular. In addition: What would that bring? The right wing exists. They are part of our population. We must admit and finally accept this problem that there are these tendencies in Germany. It does not help however to always have the right-wing marching over the border. We must talk with them, solve the problems.

Rammstein reaches the right-wing scene.

Till: We reach many, even the solicitor in Hamburg. And concerning the right-wing: For me the state is too unconcerned with the problem. You beat a black half to death, and the punishment given is community service. Before the Changes, in Schwerin we already always brawled with the Skins – today why doesn't one try harder? I grew up with a girl, a half-caste. They still come each summer to Mecklenburg for a visit. They fear the people and do not trust specific places. That’s why I am simply ashamed.

Nevertheless, you play with a picture of Germany that evokes certain memories.

Schneider: Rammstein is not a concept. We came together in order to make this music and this Show, and we work like a self-help group. We do what we find good, nothing more. Perhaps for this reason we stay authentic for our fans. In accordance with the Motto: Rammstein do their thing and are not like any others. Possibly this also accounts for our success in the USA. However, again our critics have a problem with us: They are afraid that the American Kids only associate Germany with Rammstein and nothing more. The Americans really only go for our artistic abilities. The politics are over estimated.
Till: Nobody ever asks what political leanings Ricky Martin has. One hears a song, finds it either good or bad. That is all.

© 2005 Sue Lindemann